Since you have us all excited at the prospect of Humanitas, I beg of you, build your system in a modular way.

Stardock does this well. You can download the game and play it. Then , you can download the music and add it in. Then, you can download the multi-media and add it in.

If you follow this approach, you can concentrate on getting the game down and not worry about things like end movies and wonder movies (you could even outsource them!!), though the animated terrain would likely need to be built in directly.

In other words, get us the completed gameplay before burning time on multi-media.

Comment

Hmm... I think that the wonder movies are more of a nostalgia thing from Civ 2--but what Civ III did was UNFORGIVABLE. I would actually rather have the wonder as terrain improvements, so I could glare at them forever...

Animated terrain is another personal thing of mine. I think that it should show subtle effects, however. In Call to Power, the animated trade routes KIND OF had this idea, but it was executed horribly. What I speak of is something like seeing tiny citizens tending to farms and mines, even after the improvement is completed. Also, in these forests, if some kind of life could be seen or heard (I don't know if you could draw that small ), it would really make the terrains less...blegh.

OH, BY THE WAY, animated water is a must! So often do I see stagnant non-movey water that it...yeah...

Leaderheads...I actually think that a revival from the first Civ would be pretty cool--except if it looked nice. Each leader could have his little council that players would meet, and as outrageous deals are made, it should be the servants, councillors, etc., making bad faces. After all, it is BENEATH a ruler to show extreme expression.

End game movies sound cool to me at first, but they would only work if there were a lot of them. The same generic "You conquered the world" movie could get just as old as a blank "You win" screen.

Comment

Personally, I liked the leaderhead, but I liked the advisor movies even more. I think the reason so many people are down on the leaderheads is the total lack of variety Civ gave them. If there was an option to change the leader's name so a civ could have a different leader at different ages that would be a plus. Or scriptable event that played movies so you could add in advisor clips that would be nice as well.